Page 118 of On His Mind

“Is this okay?” I ask, slowly learning what she feels like.

She nods.

When I touch her, she goes taut and grabs at my forearm. I watch her face the whole time because I can’t look away from her. She’s beautiful.

“Percy.” Her voice is thin. “Come here.”

I settle over her with my weight held off her on one arm, and there’s a second where we’re right at the edge of it, her leg coming up around me, both of us gone still, my heart going so hard she can probably feel it.

“Okay?” I manage.

“Yes.” She pulls me down by the back of the neck. “Yes.”

And then I’m pushing inside her slowly, and the whole world goes to one point, and I have to stop.

I drop my forehead to hers. I can’t move. It’s landed on me all at once — how close this is, how there’s nothing between us, no wall, no inch of held-back anything, that I’m giving her the last thing I had folded down under everything and I’m handing it over right now and there’s no getting it back.

And I can’t move.

I’m breathing hard against her mouth, and my arm’s shaking.

“Hey.” Her hands come to my face, both of them, holding me there against her. “I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

I open my eyes. She’s right there. All the way there, holding my eyes, holding my face, and I’ve spent my whole life making sure nobody ever got to see me and she’s seeing me right now, all of it.

I push into her, watching her breathe through it. She gasps, scratching at my back, and every inch of me goes tight because she feels so fucking good. Too fucking good.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods.

I start to move, feeling her clench around me. She moves with me, pushing her hips up, and I lose myself completely. I bury my mouth in her neck and let go of every last thing I’ve ever held onto.

After, I can’t move for a different reason. I’m on my back and she’s tucked against my side, half on my chest, and I’ve got one hand in her hair and the other moving up and down on her back, like if I stop touching her she’ll slip away. Her leg’s thrown over mine. Her breath’s warm on my collarbone and going slower.

I keep waiting for the panic to come, and it doesn’t. There’s just her weight, the warm room, my hand on her spine, and a quiet in me I’ve never once had.

And then I get tired. Not wired-tired, the way I always am. Warm-tired. Heavy. My eyes going down on their own, my whole body loose in a way it never gets, and I fight it out of pure habit, because I don’t sleep, I’ve never slept anywhere I couldn’t watch the door, and I’ve sure as hell never slept with somebody in the bed, and I feel myself losing it anyway. Her breathing’s slow and even against my chest. Mine keeps trying to match it.

There’s a feeling at the very edge as I go under. That she’s got all of me now. That there’s nothing held back, everything I am handed to her. I feel the danger of it. The risk. But her hair’s under my hand, and her weight’s on my chest, and I’m warmer than I’ve ever been, and it doesn’t clamp around my throat. It doesn’t get me tonight. I go under to the sound of her breathing.

I sleep.

The gray of almost-dawn wakes me, and for a second I don’t know where I am, and then I remember. Penelope’s against me.Half under my arm, her hand loose on my stomach, deep asleep, her hair across my shoulder. I slept. All the way through, no waking, no watching the door. I lie there a minute and think about last night.

I could stay. I want to. I could say fuck it and choose this, but there’s a house across town and guys who’ll be up soon and a whiteboard with a list of rules on it. I move out from under her an inch at a time.

She stirs. Her hand chases my arm. “Stay,” she says, thick with sleep, not really awake.

Those words stab because I want to. I want to so fucking bad, but the consequence of losing Hawthorne screams too loud in my head, so I remove myself from her bed completely. I find my clothes on the floor.

I lean back down, press my mouth to her forehead, and she’s already sinking. “Go back to sleep.”

I dress in the dark. At the door, I look back at her once — warm, mine, in a bed where in a few hours it’ll be like I was never in it.

The cold hits me the second I’m out, and I pull my jacket close and start the walk home through a sleeping gray town.

Chapter 40